The invention relates to a chain tube cutter comprising two levers relatively pivotable on a pivot pin, hand grips on one side of the pivot and, on the other side, arms, and a linked chain with cutting rollers carried on link pins which is pivoted, but not readily removable from one arm and selectably engaged two forks on the other arm at different link pins.
Such a chain tube cutter can be used on a number of different tube diameters and materials such as metal, plastic, etc. For the purpose of adjustment to a different tube diameter, the link pin notched into the forks on the one plier arm is taken out and another link pin notched in its place. By squeezing together the two plier levers, the chain and the cutting rollers are tensioned around the tube so that by twisting, especially twisting to-and-fro, a clean separation of the tube is effected. Because of the necessarily quite coarse pitch of the linked chain, occasioned by the diameter of the cutting rollers, and hence the spacing of the link pins, known chain tube cutters have only a coarse adjustability. This means that with a substantial number of tube diameters, the plier levers have to be spread wide apart at the start of the cutting process which does not allow the optimum application of force. If the next wider spaced link pin is notched in the forks, the plier levers can certainly be put in an advantageous relative position at the beginning of the cutting process, but then it can happen--especially with thick-walled tubes--that the cutting process cannot be carried through to the end, because the plier levers have closed.